The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-10-28

cards? Is there any harm in . game Of
whist or euchre!" Well, I know good
men who play whist and euchre and
other styles of games without any wag.
ers. had friend who played cards
with his wife and children. and then at
the close said: ''Come. now, let rs have
prayers" will not judge other mems
but will tell you that cards
are in my mind SO associated with the
temporal and eternal damnation Of
splendid young men, that I should no
sooner say to my family, "Come,
let ms have game Of cards.
than would 60 into menagerie and say:
"Come, let US have . game Of rattle
snakes" or into a cemetery, and, sitting
down by marble slab, say to the grave
diggers: "Come, let us have . game of
skulls" Conscientious young ladies ara
silently saying to me while speak: "Do
you think card-playing will do us any
harm:" Perhaps not; but how will you
we are asked sto give an account Of
orr influence. some man shall say to you:
81 was introduced to games Of chance in
the year 1887, in Brooklyn, at your house.
and went on from that sport to some.
thing more exciting, and went on down
until 1 lost my business, and lost my
morals and lost my soul, and these chains
that you see on my wrists and feet are the
chains of a gamester's doom, and am on
my way to a gamblers hell" Honey at
the start-eternal catastrophe at the last.
Stock gambling comes into the same
catalogue. 1t must be very exhilarating
to go into Wall street, New York, or State
street, Boston. or Third street, Philadel-
phia, and dspositing a small sum OF
money, run the risk OF taking out fort
une. Many men are doing an honest and
safe business in the stock market, and You
are an ignoramus if you do not know that
it is just as legitimate to deal in stocks as
to deal in coffee, or sugar, or flour. But
nearly all the outsiders who go there on a
little financial excursion lose all. The old
spiders eat up the unsuspecting flies. I
had friend who put his hand on his hip
pocket ana said to me in substances: 81
have there the value of $4,000" His
home is to-day penniless. What
was the matter? Wall street.
OF the vast majority who are victim
lied you hear not one word. One great
stock firm goes down and whole columns
of newspapers discuss their fraud, or their
and We are presented with their
features and their biography. But where
one such famous firm sinks, five hundred
unknown men sink with them. The great
steamer goes down and all the little
boats are swallowed in the same enguif-
ment.
Gambling is gambling, whether in stocks
or breadstuffs, or dice, or race-track bet
ting. Exhilaration at the start, and a
raving brain, and a shattered nervous
system. and a sacrificed property, and a
destroyed soul at the last. Young man,
buy no lottery tickets, purchase no prize
packages, let on no base bali games or
yacht racing, have no faith in luck, an.
swer no mysterious circulars proposing
great income for small investment, shoe
away the buzzards that hover around our
hotels trying to entrap strangers. Go out
and make an honest living. Have God on
your side and be a candidate for heaven.
Remember all the paths Of sin are banked
with flowers at the start, and there are
plenty of helpful hands to fetch the gay
charger to your door and hold the stirrup
while you mount. But further on the
horse plunges to the bit in slough inex-
tricable. The best honey is not like that
rod and brought to his lip, but that which
mercy, at which we are all invited to sit.
Twas reading Of boy among the noun
ta!ns of Switzerland ascending danger
Gus place with his father and the guides.
The boy stepped on the edge of the cliff
and said: "There is flower mean to
get"
"Come away from there" said the
father, "you will fall off,"
''No," said he, 81 must get that beautiful
and the guides rushed toward him
to pull him back, when they heard him
say, 81 almost have it," and he fell two
thousand feet.
Birds of prey were seen q few days
after circling through the air and lower
ing gradually to the place where the corpse
lay.
Why seek flowers of the edge Of a prec-
ipice when you may walk knee deep amid
the full blooms of the very paradise of
God? When a man may sit at kings
banquet, why will he go down the steps
and contend for the gristle and bones of
hounds kennel? "Sweeter than honey
and the honeycomb," says David,
sis the truth of God" "With honey out
of the rock would have satisfied thee"
says God to the recreant. Here is honey
gathered from the blossoms of trees Of
life, and with a rod made out of the wood
of the cross l dip it up for all your souls.
The poet Hesiod tells Of an ambrosia
and a nectar the drinking of which would
make men live forever, and one sip Of this
honey from the Eternal Rock will give
You an immortal life with God. Come of
Of the 'malarial levels of q sinful life.
Come and live on the uplands Of grace
where the vineyards sun themselves. oh,
taste and see that the Lord is gracious.
Be happy now and happy forever. Far
those who take a different course ths
honey will turn to gan.
For many things have admired Percy
Shelley, the great English poet, but de-
plore the fact that it was q great sweet
ness to him to dishonor God. The poem
'Queen Nab" has in it the maligning of
The Deity. The infidel post was impious
enough to ask for Rowland Hil's Surrey
Chapel that he might denounce the Chris
ian religion. He was in great glee
against God and the truth. But he visited
Italy, and one day ON the Mediterranean
with two friends in a boat, which was
feet long, he was coming
toward shore when an hours squall struck
he water. A gentleman standing on shore
through q glass saw many boats tossed
n this squall, but all outrode the terror
except one, that in which Shelley, the
nfidel poet, and his two friends were
sailing. That never came ashore. but the
bodies of two Of the occupants were
washed upon the beach, one of them the
poet. A funeral pyre was built On the
Tea shore by some classic friends, and tho
.wo bodies were consumed. Poor Shelley!
He would have no God while he lived,
md he probably had no God when he
lied.
The Lord knoweth the way OF the righteous,
put the way of the ungodly shall perish.